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CHORDS 

FROM ALBIREO 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/chordsfromalbireOObarn 



CHORDS 
P^ROM ALBIREO 

BY DANFORD BARNEY 

(Author of "Dust of Stars") 



With a foreword by 
LAWRENCE MASON, Ph.D. 

(Yale University) 



" Thai every quest is but a coming homey 

— Hooker 



NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
MCMXX 



4:P t 






X\ 



Copyright, 1920 
By John Lane Company 



MAR 13 1320 



^CIA566062 



•^v-C) 



5 TO 

r- LAURA DUNHAM BARNEY, 

- MY MOTHER— 

Q FOR WHAT SHE HAS DONE, 

^, FOR WHAT I HAVE NOT DONE, 

THIS BRIEF VOLUME 
IS DEDICATED 



Thanks are herewith given to the following for permission 
to reprint certain poems that have already appeared within 
their pages : 

The London Sphere 

The English Poetry Review 

The Lyric 

Good Housekeeping 

The Poetry Journal 

Scribner^s Magazine 

The Yale University Press 

Harper &' Brothers 



FOREWORD 

It is a familiar truism that any educated man or woman who 
cares to make the effort can write verses that scan and rhyme 
correctly^ for this is simply a matter of rational intelligence 
applied to the operation of a set of rules. In a day when this 
truism has been deplorably abused by so many persons, it is 
refreshing to turn to a writer whose natural poetic idiom can- 
not possibly be mistaken for the machine-made product of the 
mere intelligent will-to-versify. Not that Mr. Barney's every 
utterance is quintessential poesy, necessarily: but it is, for 
better or for worse, the utterance of a poet, rather than that 
of the ordinary educated citizen of the world. I, at any rate, 
in recording this as my opinion, believe that it will be shared 
by most discerning readers, and now proceed to ask of those 
who do not share it a fair consideration of the following 
reasons for the faith that is in me. 

Mr. Barney's poetry, then, is frankly the poetry of feeling, 
impression, or intuition, adumbrated by image and symbol, as 
contradistinguished from the poetry of the strictly intellectual 
processes, working as it were, or at least capable of being 
worked out, by a logical diagram. It seeks to evoke moods, 
in a series of spiritual moments, rather than to impart ideas 
by a sequence of correlated propositions, and accordingly often 
employs the structureless, ejaculatory phrase of rhapsody in 
lieu of the strictly grammatical declarative sentence of mun- 
dane intercourse. It is thus entirely content to appear inar- 
ticulate to the analytical mind, if it can but appeal by a kind 
of aesthetic telepathy to the sensitive poetic temperament. 
Let the sympathetic reader accept these premises and freely 
yield himself to the vague exaltation or strong emotion induced 
by glowing imagery and noble diction, without endeavoring too 
rigorously to translate every line into reasoned prose, and he 
will find himself under the true spell of enchantment which 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

authentic poetry always easts over its votaries. This method 
of composition, therefore, which exalts the spirit above the 
letter, the immediate realization above the mediate under- 
standing, by passionately apprehending more than cool reason 
ever comprehends, seems to me entirely legitimate in the ab- 
stract, even though I must candidly confess that my own 
critical interest in the theory, and my faith in its validity, 
are quite independent of my liking or disliking any given 
specimen of Mr. Barney's work, in the concrete. 

Perhaps the citation of a few illustrative poems and pas- 
sages from this volume will make clearer the particular quali- 
ties that I seek to disengage as characteristic of this type of 
poetry. "Zones," "Fantasy," "Possessions," "Vision," and 
some other pieces, of course, are lucid and direct enough to 
satisfy the most orthodox canons, but these are really excep- 
tions to the rxile. A typical manifestation of this art of 
conveying the thrill and inspiration of poetry by logically 
inadequate means is "Men and Stars" : beauty and fervour and 
vast philosophical issues are here hauntingly suggested, and 
yet no line-by-line paraphrase in normal speech is possible^ — 
or requisite — to me, at least. Similarly I find the closing lines 
of "Their Yesterday" and "Diametrics" movingly beautiful, 
in spite of the fact that the earlier stanzas baffle my under- 
standing. Almost every line in "Star" might well drive 
pedestrian common sense into the irritated protest, "Why? 
What on earth does this mean?" — and still, to a mood of poetic 
surrender, the poem as a whole is very effective and affect- 
ing. Briefer examples of emotional glamour defying rational 
literalism are these: 

"Prescience of you far away. 
With you, will be yesterday." 

"Where unexpended sense shall quaff 
The choiring beauty of no form. 
Or, from its peace, ride as the chaff 
Giddy on pinnacles of storm." 

10 



FOREWORD 

"As if the 'scutcheon of Christ's votarist 
Were worth the pride of him who caused the blot." 

But it is unnecessary to multiply quotations when almost every 
page affords instances, and I cannot hope to render my con- 
ception of this special phase of poetics either more intelligible 
to the reader or more acceptable, without unduly expanding 
this preface. One point further, however, should be made in 
fairness to Mr. Barney, lest, by withholding quotation, I 
should seem to imply that there are no good lines of the more 
conventional sort in his work, whereas in reality effects like the 
following are by no means infrequent: 

"When lips unto my lips that press 
Shall stir no sense but holiness." 

"Where the wind moved as rain, mysteriously." 

"The stars were flung as dust in the tree-tops." 

Or this fine rebuke to the despair born of disillusionment: 

"Because you dreamed you held the best God gave. 
Think you God died the moment you awoke ?" 

The present collection includes the work that Mr. Barney 
has done since the publication of his first volume, in Novem- 
ber, 1916, and hence covers the varied periods before his en- 
listment, during his service in France, and since his return and 
discharge. Though there is consequently a considerable diver- 
sity in his subject-matter, yet the predominance of a few lead- 
ing motives or fundamental convictions is noteworthy : we find 
everywhere an ardent affirmation of the supreme value and 
eternal sanctity of Beauty, Innocence, and Aspiration — all in- 
carnate or emblemed, apparently, in One delicately veiled 
Innominata who is repeatedly hymned in a white passion of 
chivalrous worship. That Mr. Barney does not always rise to 
the height of these great arguments would be easy to show by 
pointing out flaws: but this is only to say that his method of 

11 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

composition^ like everything else in this finite worlds suffers 
from the unavoidable defects of its qualities. On the whole, 
in closing, I can but repeat that the collection seems to me to 
comprise a number of admirable illustrations of an exceedingly- 
interesting poetic theory. 

Lawrence Mason. 
Yale University, 
October, 1919. 



12 



CONTENTS 

^Foreword 9 

1917 — 

A Woman Passing 17 

Hill Fever 21 

The Everlasting Miracle 23 

Confession 26 

Beauty 27 

The Dead to Wake 29 

How Glad to Know 30 

Woman's Song 31 

Diametrics 32 

Masses 34 

France- 
Men AND Stars 37 

The Major Paradox 38 

On a Rose 41 

Blesse 42 

Vestal 44 

In His Name 45 

Immortality 48 

Comrades 49 

Zones 51 

By a Tuscan Ruin 62 

Humor 53 

Music 55 

Their Yesterday . 57 

Finale 59 

1919 — 

Dolores I _ 63 

II 64 

Philanderer 65 

13 



CONTENTS 

Forgotten Lover 67 

Faith 68 

Fantasy 69 

Upon the Piper 70 

Generations 72 

Little Feet 74 

Breath 76 

BY THE SEA— 

Beata Die 79 

Minor Dominants 84 

Star 87 

Vision 88 

Possession 89 

Trinity 90 

Ne 92 

Plus 93 

Ultra 94 

Destiny 96 

Token 96 

Song of Songs 97 

Lilies Red 98 

To W. R. W 100 



14 



1917 



A WOMAN PASSING 

Lover of winds! A little while ago 

You sang in glamourie across the fields 

Down the old road that still leads to a stream. 

Casual in its dreamland flow beneath 

The over-arch of trees; or did you rim 

Drunken in splendour by the constant waves, 

Breaking their white hearts on the singing sands ? 

And one day all the holiness of earth 

Crept into you, when through the forest blue. 

Quiet in passion as cathedral nave, 

You stole in other mood of nearer dreams 

Over the printless mould until the Kght 

Of heaven led you to a meadow slope 

Where you had kissed twin flowers by a stone. 

Ah, none was there to make it consecrate, 

The yearning wind, this power of love to crave, 

To say that wind and sea form but a thread 

Of song to hide the dream of dearer hours. 

Till, in the fantasy of your unworth. 

Your want of wisdom in the things God gave 

To hold the strength of winds in governance, 

A jester came, acquainted of the world. 

To set your heart's austerities at play, 

Like as a demon bee may seek the heart 

Of the wild flower to drain the living sweet. 

Leaving in recompense its deathless sting. 

For him you gave the star of womanhood, 

Bore, in his image, these beloved twain, 

17 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

Twin flowers such as you had kissed before, 
Sprung from the dust of Beauty's lustral shard, 
Broken, you say, in God's own spendthrift hand. 

Lover of wine ; kixuriant of earth ! 
Is it the song of wind and rain has ceased, 
Or, has the breaking of a dream made dark 
The wonder that you ran unheeding towards! 
Because you dreamed you held the best God gave. 
Think you God died the moment you awoke? 
Christ still is Christ, however Beauty fail, 
Love ever blind, so Beauty yearn to see. 
And all the ecstasy of things achieved, 
Through our unuttered sacrifice of pride, 
Lives in the singing eyes, the clean, warm lips 
Of God's redeemed, and those who first did win. 
Another came to you more sanctified. 
With prescience of the worship you once held, 
Not swift to judge the swiftness of desire. 
But hallowed in redemption; not to preach, 
Nor pray, yet kindly comrade in your dreams 
That were and are and shall be, when you know. 
He came in raptured song upon the shard, 
Taking the broken facets in his hand 
To mould again in all their holiness. 
What if the shell be broken, still the pearl, 
The rondured vial of life's wine, is found 
By many a fisher on the singing sands 
To set within some coronet anew. 
And still you say this clay is all in all, 
Beauty so frail that pride is its defense, 

18 



A WOMAN PASSING 

As if the 'scutcheon of Christ's votarist 
Were worth the pride of him who caused the blot. 
Unwitting that the sacred flame, once known, 
Is still alight, hanging full-orbed above. 
Shall you believe this draught of earthen cups 
One with the clear wine youth once sipped in fire? 
Or, shall these flowers know the stain you leave, 
Labor in doubt of Beauty ill redeemed, 
Untaught of hope because the soul was weak, 
So give their honey for a fool's desire? 

Lover of God, blind to the love he bore ! 
Perhaps some dawn shall make this night's desire 
A mockery of what you deem it is ; 
Bringing the wild wind laden with new song 
To sweep, as autumn leaves across the snow. 
Old fantasies of darker yesterday 
Into oblivion, till the broken shard 
Must gleam again in re-awakened fire, 
Quick with the wine of his translucent cup, 
Who stoops to claim his resurrected own. 
Perhaps, beyond the hope of tired sense 
And all the weary longing in men's hearts, 
Another song of winds, and sound of waves, 
Breaking their white hearts on the singing sands, 
Shall steal adown remembered years to stir 
Light in those dim, grey eyes, and warmth of blood 
Upon the passionate lips to cry again 
Lost verses from the treasury of time. 
So may the heart uplift itself in song 
Of awes and adorations, clearly sweet, 

19 



CHOEDS PROM ALBIREO 

Cleansed in the sacrament of bleeding hours, 
Star-strong against the little voice of fear; 
And life, as once you laiew it, gleam again 
Once in another's eyes before you pass, 
Out of the dim and depth of our grey streets, 
A naked pilgrim, through the even-song. 
Leaving these flowers wistful to the world, 
Sentient in that wonder you possessed, 
Companion blossoms by the dusty road, 
Closing their crimson petals day by day. 
Perhaps some new decade shall see a heart 
Enter the stillness of their wonted doubt 
To catch them in the balance ere they dream 
Of all that is, and think what is is just ; 
A heart that found its courage in denial. 
Knowing the difficult pain the greater joy; 
And such a heart may yet retain a song, 
The lingering smile of children's questioning, 
Happy in dreams before earth's hunger came, 
Ere they forget, and laugh, and be forgot. 



20 



HILL FEVER 

{From a mining hospital Southwest) 

That door so white 

Below the invisible light! 

I might have knelt, 

Beating winged hands against the immaculate gate 

Of Heaven's vaulted dreams, 

Crying to lyric singers far within ; 

"I come, absolved of sin, 

Players of God. 

Let me but cast the raiment from this mould, 

I that have seen and felt 

The shadow rose 

Fold, to unclose 

In fragrant ecstasy insufferable, 

Through bitter moons untold! 

Ah, cover me from the holy face that gleams 

Down the long, naked path of my unrest; 

Only this last behest. 

Saviour, fling wide, unless — ". Ah, God, too late! 

Heaven, these walls still creep 

In fearful vigil close as a prison keep. 

Look where an ant-like figure climbs the trail. 

Across that canyon stark, 

Unwitting^ that this mind 

Lifts him from humankind. 

21 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

Old time immutable 

Flings on these hills that nod 

Impersonate of God 

The vasty, hollow silence of the dark. 

Strange little seed of things 

To keep these fevered eyes upon their Grail! 

Quickening miracle of dulled nerves that flings 

A wonder iridescence on her hair ! 

From age to age, 

Saviour, thy little wage. 

Lifts us subliminal. 

And all 

The wants of heart and mind that with us cleave, 

Too mortal to confess. 

Die silent with the fragile lips' impress 

Upon the hand that led with holy care, 

When twilight set the western torch at eve ! 



22 



THE EVERLASTING MIRACLE 

Think ye this great Madonna ye adore 
Knew not fulfilment in that utter sense 
Which can alone crown the immortal mind 
Or sanctify the earth's eternal fire? 
By chance, some saint set tinsel on the star 
That led those ancient prophets weary wise 
Unto the garden where God's flower bloomed? 
Against the poor inheritance of minds 
That made tradition waver down these years, 
Shall we declare this one eternal law, 
Our lasting miracle of major worth, 
Exampled in the thread of all that lives, 
Flowers and ferns, in bird and beast, as man, 
Broken in one lone instance to defy 
The Maker's first intention: or, was God 
Tricked in the dark of fancy for our creeds? 
Lo, lo, poor mummers in your convent minds. 
Will ye not sense the anguish of a world 
That lingers yet till some predominant soul 
Shall prostitute his weakness to be strong, 
Forging God's worth anew in vaster truth 
Than eyes have witnessed ; for the single light 
Of consecration burns subliminal 
Beyond these weakly candles of our shrine! 
Aye, some must cast these shards of travesty 
Into the grim of Hell, and clear their hearts 
To walk the hills where many Christs have died. 

23 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

And each shall have a star above his head, 

One miracle of hope beyond all pain 

Or sorrow to diminish, one sweet source 

Wherein the lights and shadows, tears and songs, 

Attuned to his by some predestined will 

Above all others, holier than prayer. 

Linger and brighten, deepen in splendor there, 

As chaliced wine in some deep treasury 

Heightens in rapture, craving diviner taste. 

Or, shall one pluck an acorn from its branch. 

Grasping the bitter fruit of cowardice, 

If he has seen the apple blossoms sway 

In all their hallowed vesture, or has felt 

Prescience of birth and life more sanctified 

With fragi'ance petal-borne down hills of Spring? 

Nay ; time will come when every saint shall bear 

The gift of sense perfected in the thirst 

Of clear fulfilment, hear, and see, and touch. 

Until delight of graver ecstasies 

Garner the immortalities of earth. 

So, harmony of many instruments 

In poignant overture must raise the thought 

In universal theme beyond the sense 

Of this our every day, until the years 

Spin to the heaven's planetary tune, 

Beyond the casual dreamer's power to hold 

The greater vision in his common life. 

So parchments are with ink invisible, 

Unseen because thereon are words unlike 

The usual barter of our daily tongues. 

Dreams far beyond the covenants of fools, 

24 



EVERLASTING MIEACLE 

The inarticulate sessions of lone minds ; 
Only upon the endeavored ways of light, 
Some luminary star may sink deep, deep, 
Within the watchful precincts, lingering on 
The dying parchment, and the words leap up 
In warmth of rapture to some full-voiced song, 
Sweeter than sorrow, assured in holiness. 
Even has beauty been arrayed in pain 
Ere the white rose turned crimson in the night. 
Behold that face still looms a shadowy form, 
Those singing lips yet lift their faithful song. 
As minor dominant of men's dying dream, 
And major resurrection! 



25 



CONFESSION 

Must I lay bare the fallacy of lips 

That cry me down the night and day to haunt 

My ears with idle condemnation thus : 

"Behold this dreamer prostitutes his creed, 

"That claims whereof is beauty there is strength, 

"And here his spirit wanes for want of flesh!" 

Ah, little worshippers of common sense. 

Unwitting the extraordinary height 

Of souls forever mutual in this clay, 

Sense unto sense till all divinity 

Distils the earth's fulfilment. Only here, 

Within this kingdom where affections rule. 

Shall minds gleam forth incarnate with the wine 

Of holy chalice whence two hearts have sipped. 

Dear Heart, I leave the morning of your face 

To meet the stalwart thoughts of men beyond, 

To consecrate all Beauty in the acts 

Of humble striving and the gloried play 

Of multitudes along their myriad paths. 

Lauding the strong, setting the weak with power, 

For I am you, and you go forth in me. 

Each in his own fit manner till the war 

Of each long day must end in weary peace. 

Then to the chalice of the moil's spent wine. 

The resurrection of expended hours, 

I shall return to fill the cup again. 

To sleep within the twilight of your eyes. 

26 



BEAUTY 

Strangely that face must haunt me as a star ! 
Ah, Bride who sought in pain your master Love, 
Beauty, I know you as you were and are 
And will be when this pulse has ceased to move. 

You that first stirred Love's seedling in the womb 
Mould us to die ; your prescience that each sips 
Lives in the flower still-born upon the tomb 
To draw your quickened song from redder lips. 

The coming man grows gradual in your power, 
That once revealed in aftermath of pain ; 
One torch of hope to light each barren hour. 
Our dreams forgone for what we can attain. 

You the Eternal ; and we but quest in brief ; 
Find you in color, form, familiar songs. 
Our little faith makes melody of grief, 
Craving in you what least to each belongs. 

Somewhere, to-day, the little cloud slips drift 
Flaming adown the twilight stream of rest. 
One line of blue amid the white makes rift, 
As delicate vein across a mother's breast. 

27 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

Here, in the moil yon gothic symbol stands 
Protest against the day's more gross desire, 
Reaching in prayer of many labored hands 
The spirit finger of its dark limned spire. 

The gamin's song along the dirty street 
Wakens atremble down the city night. 
Against the least dim sounds of weary f eet,- 
The finite yearning towards the infinite. 



28 



THE DEAD TO WAKE 

It were not easy for the dead to wake, 
Or that we dream such dreams as never break ; 
Yet Beauty steals upon our vestured sleep 
In sweet surrender for another's sake. 

It were not easy for the dead to rise. 

Or that the Lowlands hear the Mountain cries ; 

Yet Beauty walks immortal in desire, 

To crown the shadows after sunset dies. 



Children pass on with unillumined eyes. 
As twilight flowers close their lips with sighs ; 
Or some hand plucks one from its barren field. 
In resurrection infinitely wise. 

The warp of sorrow in the threads of rain 
Binds the night loom, till in and out again 
Swift Beauty's shuttle cleaves the web of doubt, 
Weaving the dawn exquisite in its pain. 



29 



HOW GLAD TO KNOW 

How glad to laiow that such as you may rise 
Beyond the near horizon of young dream. 
Stealing into one's heart as radiant gleam 
Of kindly star through children's paradise ! 

So, in the bondage of men's idle wrong 

The caged bird does not stir, 

Until, amid the shadows of its doubt. 

Prescience of understanding from without. 

And some wise comforter 

Gathers the little courage of its song. 

So, April steals among the silent trees 

Under the sleep of Winter days 

Seeking the intimate heart of springs 

Whereat she sets her lips upon 

The frozen surface, and their new warmth frees 

The inner life and miracle of things, 

In deep reflection, as it bubbles on 

Its singing ways. 

How glad to know 

That in this consecrated place, 

Happy for its release, 

Howe'er the many streams may flow, 

Howe'er you wander for a little space 

Over the field and hill. 

This spring shall babble on and will. 

In sunlight or in rain 

Should you return again. 

Be singing still 

In consecrated peace ! 

30 



WOMAN'S SONG 

If we give thanks for any gain of war, 

Let mine be only this, 
Throughout the cloud there shone one instant star. 

All that is mine was for a moment his. 

If thanks be meet, let this fulfil my prayer, 

One gleam of old lang syne, 
That joy of earth and sea, the light and air. 

Distilled in him were for a moment mine. 

Now though he walk elsewhere nor come again, 

My way is ever ours ; 
He shall be mine, unwitting, and my pain 

Shadow new revelation of his powers. 



31 



DIAMETRICS 

Only, beyond this night 
Purple hours of pain 
Steep in the mad unrest ; 
All that I gave, to earn 
Your soul, must needs return 
Sweet with the unpossessed, 
Tremble and rise again. 
Blinding the dawn in light. 

Once we were one and one. 
Leaves that had flown astray 
Through hours of lingering sweet ; 
Minims of humankind. 
Blown before gorgeous wind. 
Separate only to meet 
Somewhere to dance and play. 
Children beneath the sun. 

Isles of the changing light ; 
Shadows that creep the hill; 
Sharp trees against the sky; 
Seas on a broken shore 
Haunting you evermore 
Follow your path, and I 
Scatter my dreams, and still 
Garner the facets bright. 

32 



DIAMETRICS 

Life was your sacrament, 
Faith in a world unwise, 
Joy, not knowing why. 
Yet through the wind and rain 
You shall return again. 
Seeking inconstantly 
Rest for your tired eyes, 
Peace and a strange content. 

All that is touched and seen. 
Beauty of all possessed. 
Keep you in ecstasy, 
Howe'er we ever meet 
Smiling, to pass and greet. 
Something eternally 
Out of the endless quest 
Runs ever dark between. 

E'en though the gods of old, 
Dreams of their vestal fire. 
Lead you to still your pain ; 
Out of your world absorbed, 
Into my world, full-orbed 
Your face shall gleam again ; 
Memory shall make desire 
All that the heart can hold. 



33 



MASSES 

Over the silences of time, 

Beating incessantly on every hand 

These soundless voices, crying thus. 

As the far drone of many bees 

Or ebb and flow of many peopled seas 

Weaving their sleepless ire. 

Would seem to storm the last redoubt of thought 

As if they sought 

To quench our one eternal fire, 

Crying, "Come down to us; 

Or tell us this we may not understand!" 

Over the silences of time. 



34 



FRANCE 



MEN AND STARS 

It's all a master symphony, a glad sad song 

Of sunshine and sorrow as footsteps march along 

Adown the ways of magic 

Through happy and the tragic 
Sorrow-laden hours of God's eternal plan; 

We that are but shadows 

Across the litten meadows, 
As flowers, bloom to vanish beyond the endless span. 

It's all a master symphony, and every act or dream 
Only a minor dominant within the major theme. 

Faith in every sorrow 

Gleams of a tomorrow. 
Light that shadows borrow from cradle to the tomb ; 

Gain in each achieving, 

Loss beyond retrieving. 
Are one within the weaving upon a greater loom. 

It's all a martial symphony ; each marching to his war 
Passes in transcendent gleam of his o'erarching star. 

Throughout the greater yearning 

Within our orbits turning. 
Still as the stars are burning beyond where planets 
roam. 

Divine, our deep desire 

Flames in the tongueless choir, 
The everlasting regiments forever coming home. 



37 



THE MAJOR PARADOX 

(France: 1917-1919) 

We have claimed one God, but to worship makers 

and masters of men; 
Taken of one Communion, proven the dual mind. 
We have tuned our harp of sorrow; suffered to 

laugh again; 
We have reckoned a nation's honor in barter of 

mankind. 

Where is the forfeit levied, whose is the bargain 

won. 
When saints are given for dust, hearts for a penny 

sold? 
I have seen a mother sorrow for one of her breeding 

gone; 
Yet we send our sons in prowess to mimic the 

Christ of old! 

We, who claim God in common, shall we be fools at 

best, 
When two strong men in common seek that the 

other die? 
Oh, all ye that are weary, will ye give all for rest, 
Say that belief is a shadow, Christ but a living lie? 

Fear, that had made us holy, has broken our faith 
at last. 

38 



THE MAJOE PARADOX 

Whose in the world's affliction to sever the right 

from wrong? 
We have scattered the broken bread, spreading the 

red repast. 
Singing each of our sorrow, and there are no words 

for the song. 

We have hfted the cup in vengeance to find it a 
bitter wine ; 

They that have sipped shall madden, drinking for- 
ever deep. 

Till the chosen shall be united in dream of a 
common sign. 

In sleep, and a little slumber, and a folding of 
hands in sleep. 

We have broken the lasting creed, to sanction a 

compromise 
With Him who has cried, "I come not to destroy, 

but to fulfil!" 
Yet whose is the gift to sanction; whose shall be 

Paradise, 
That have torn for their many banners the raiment 

of His will? 

What is this doubt you gave us to flame in the eyes 

of youth, 
We that are God-inspired, one in the living breath? 
Bound in our petty trials, one in the infinite Truth, 
Shall we sow sin in hatred, reaping the wage in 

death? 

39 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

The guns of the world may storm, yet the sun must 

rise again 
Over the broken shards, throughout the hours of 

grief. 
Others shall fill the ranks where the lines of smiling 

men 
Marched as shadows away in the wonder of dark 

belief. 

The world swings on in its orbit to one predestined 

end, 
Unsullied in its purpose, howe'er we mourn for 

peace. 
It is only men's desire and doubt we have to amend, 
When those who have gone are sleeping, and those 

who are watching cease. 



40 



ON^ A ROSE 

{Received in sick-bed) 

Would that the passion and the power 
Of beauty in this passing flower 
Breathe in a living world again ! 
Would that the last tolled hour arrive, 
When only the leaf fall as the tear, 
Till in the Spring of gladder year 
Our children's children bloom alive, 
And hearthstones moan "Amen." 

Would that the hand in hand of friends 

Serve to the nations for amends 

To bring faith unto men. 

Ah, may we in this shadowed hour. 

When souls are swept as chaff away, 

And strong men gone of yesterday, 

Keep fragrance with this blood-stained flower, 

And murmur its "Amen." 

Exquisite rose, the wage of sin 

Which this poor planet labors in, 

Your beauty shall not ken. 

Your dinmied tracery near my bed. 

Rises with her, the living ghost 

Of some madonna in the host 

Of merciful who break God's bread. 

And whisper my "Amen." 

41 



BLESSE 

He's got little chance 
To finish the dance, 

That chap lying there? 
'Twill do him no good 
To waste all the blood ; 

They got him for fair. 
Watch that — did he gulp? 
Just a mass of new pulp. 

Are you sure he's not dead? 
Dead? No — don't be sure 
What the flesh shall endure ; 

He'll come back on the bed. 

Just a history of fracture; 
We'll soon manufacture 

A man from the mass; 
For a space, like as not; 
Yet how long, and for what, 

But the hour's broken glass? 
To breathe or to think 
In the mind's life and blink, 

Without limb, without sight ; 
Be it life, though it seem 
'Twere no heaven to dream 

Without stars in the night. 
42 



BLE8SE 

So they're patching him up 
That he may lift the cup 

Of life's wine again; 
That he may lie aware, 
In the touch of the air. 

Of the horror of pain ; 
Till in some tired year 
To re-vision the fear 

As in hell-mouth before, 
The flesh on the rack. 
The coin God tossed back, 

Death tapping the door. 



43 



VESTAL 

Friend, you shall let the candle burn 

As it always did in the great room. 

How happily did we discern 

Those weird suggestions through the gloom, 

Glad ghosts to meet on our return 

From ghastlier figures in this tomb. 

For peace will come, as evening dim 
Creeps soundless down the valley floor. 
Our hearts will raise their vesper hymn 
When dusk comes weeping at the door, 
And clouds sleep on the earth's grey rim. 
We'll talk of life we lived before. 

And where the olden stars were lit, 
And carrion hawks flew down to sup 
Upon the needless blood, or flit 
About the dead to lick it up, 
Within the candle gloom we'll sit 
Once more to lift the passionate cup. 



44 



IN HIS NAME 

(December, 1918) 

Where is the day our band set sail 

Heroic in our glees, 
Hull down upon a darkling trail 

Across cold leagues of seas? 
And laughed upon the dearer lot 
We left in yon fair garden spot 

For graver destinies? 

Oh, do they still touch home, those ships, 

And do they know we say 
Another prayer than crossed our lips 

That glorious yesterday? 
Or is it that we are forgot. 
To live as meaner souls have not. 

Forever and for aye? 

"We go to wash the Saviour's feet," 
Those last words to a friend! 

Do men betray, and God see meet. 
Their purport to an end? 

Or is it that some master mind 

Barters with God in humankind? 
Or is poor Christ deceit? 

45 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

He sought to prove our truth disgrace ; 

These do as menials must ; 
Authority! Look on its face, 

And say if there be lust. 
Disciples of the swineherd plan, 
Weep not the calvary of man, 

Nor men that lived as dust ! 

Five seasons saw the moon careen. 

Dead light of our desire. 
From Metz to vestured Limousine, 

And wane upon its gyre. 
We builded till the striven sweat 
Was cold upon our limbs and wet, 

And souls died down like fire. 

There was a castle in our dream. 

The chosen few of men 
Within a city raised the scheme 

According to his pen ; 
Yet emperors seemed to care no whit. 
And so the serfs fulfilled their bit. 

And tore it down again. 

But lo, we raised it on a hill. 
Through peril, toil, and pain. 

Patrolled its canvas white and still. 
In sun, or wind, or rain ; 

Until some king provoked distress 

With staring at its usefulness ; 
We razed it down again. 

46 



IN HIS NAME 

Where is the day we sealed our word, 

Our aims thrice sanctified? 
Let us not stand, dear Lord, unheard, 

That for our life has died! 
Barren in war, ah, is it peace. 
Or sterile prayer of our release, 

Or for our death, he lied? 

Oh, do they still touch home, those ships, 
Their branded cargoes charred ; 

Or bear the burden of our lips. 
From revelation barred? 

Oh, vestals of our dim return. 

Shall the warm intimate fires burn. 
To mend the broken shard! 



47 



IMMORTALITY 

Dear, should I go blindfolded to my sleep, 
To set my name upon the scroll of years. 
Let not your breast be restless with the deep 
Dark lingering impulse of persuasive tears. 
We have not fed upon the purloined dreams 
Of little mortals in their martyrdom; 
So, when the river of the unlaiown streams 
Over my inert sense you shall become 
A flaming sculpture of the outlived past. 
Graven immortal in the fading mind; 
Know only this, the mirrored form can last 
Only within the space of humankind. 
Yet, o'er the ashes still some flame divine 
Burns as a night watch o'er the form supine. 



48 



COMRADES 

(From a hospital^ France, 1917') 

We played at comrades, you and I, 
Chance made me pawn and you the queen, 
And we debated earnestly 
How things that were not might have been. 

We marched adown the gold paved way. 
We held our state in royal halls, 
As though the earth's imperial sway 
Were bounded by these naked walls. 

Till, ever in your wise concern, 
My weakness served your kinder will 
That watched the fevered taper burn, 
And slaved to keep it burning still. 

You smiled by lamplight at the trace 
Of child-surrender on the deep 
Serenity of my wan face, 
The immortality of sleep. 

And once we barkened at the rain 
Throughout the long companioned night. 
Till dawn crept to the window pane, 
And touched the walls with timid light. 

49 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

'Tis strange the lot that haunts me still; 
That I should fail my part despite 
The power to guide the flesh by will ; 
That you should stand my watch by night. 

But hours of forfeit shall reward 

Who, by their chance, must watch and wait ; 

So first within this prisoned ward 

I touched your hand upon the gate. 

If we hereafter may not meet. 
You will be strong, nor grieve too much. 
Knowing each faithful hand I greet 
Stirs with the spirit of your touch. 

Just as in petals of faded flowers, 
A beauty haunts there without end. 
As perfume through the wasting hours. 
The memory lingers of a friend. 

In other land, perhaps you'll tell 
Some dearer friend, whose faith you try, 
"There's fragrance in old flowers" — ^Ah, well. 
We played at comrades, you and I! 



50 



ZONES 

Far, far away ; and yet not very far, 
There still is sweetness in an open land ; 
There Beauty lingers as the luminous star 
Through a dark room. Ah once, we hand in hand 
Watched the deep hours deepen in the fire, 
The bright day over with the peace of night ; 
And the close lips, the mystery of desire 
Unfolded, fragile in the embered light. 
But here the ceaseless murmur of old men. 
Toiling the night shift down a filthy alley. 
Burdens our sleep, stings memory again 
With sough of trees along a windy valley. 
And I seek Thee, alone, in wanton faces. 
Where the dumb crosses bleach the desolate places. 



51 



BY A TUSCAN RUIN 

A mad wind in a black, gnarled tree 
Sings forever its old world tune ; 
Across a dead and lichened wall, 
By fitful gleamings of the moon. 
The blind storm draws continual. 
Unconsciously, its bitter rune. 
The silent masque of history. 

Deep in this nook, one new desire 
Lifts in the heart of this wild flower, 
Crying of worlds beyond this death ; 
Untrammelled by this jaundiced power, 
Somewhere new children still draw breath ; 
Somewhere throughout the tired hour 
Sweet faces gleam around a fire. 



52 



HUMOR 

(Shock-room, advance Field Hospital) 
Aug. 17, 1918. 

If you should hear I lay a broken mass, 
Do not seek out to find me where I lie; 
Withdraw the cover ; snap the lip-stained glass ; 
Maturer councils have ordained we die. 

Beloved, turn your face to whence you came. 
For I have seen the dead lad where he lay ; 
And you would never know me for the same, 
Nor I know him in any other way. 

We love the accustomed form on which we look. 
The perfect vessel holds our full content, 
But broken, only sterner lives shall brook 
The ghastlier limbs, our gross disfigurement. 

Beyond all hope, beyond all tangent sense. 
He came to us. Our hands were good as tied. 
We were but glad he held one recompense. 
Knowing he knew not if he lived or died. 

The gaped blue lips, that stirred perhaps a lover's. 
Moveless were thick with blood-black sputtering. 
Chance plays grotesque its dice. A night-moth 

hovers 
At the wick's end, the last blind guttering. 

53 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

A soldier entered, scraped his feet ; the door 
Slammed. He did not know we three were there. 
Until he tripped, caught himself up, and swore. 
The situation caught him unaware. 

Confusion made him seem the more alive. 
It was a common thing to have men die. 
'T would take an awkward dogma to contrive 
A grave face in such paradox, so I 

Laughed quietly in the dawn that broached this 

dying. 
Judge slowly lest you know not what you do, 
(With there a woman by the stretcher crying) 
Saying which be the holier of the two. 

Beware fool's pity for what has to be ; 

Laughter's more sweet than mirth, when wisdom 

clears 
The reason for our soul's eternity, 
Deeper than prayer, too terrible for tears. 



54s 



MUSIC 

(From a hill. May, 1918) 

A band is playing down below in the street, 
Waking the dirty village from the still 

Deathly vale where moon and the hill-shades meet, 
Fearfully poignant under the dark of the hill. 

Terribly sweet, ay, and a bit too sweet. 

Hark, the bugle notes to their startled wings 
Flutter unseen, shiver along the hills, 

Die in the vale ; now, the old melody swings 
Time to the weary heart, as sweetness thrills 

Over God's finger-board and tautens the strings. 

A dream-girl came tonight from over the sea 
To sing the road for dusty tattered fellows ; 

God ! for the music that wanders eternally ! 

Lithe swift body, sweet of the eyes that mellows 

Trodden turf to blossoms of memory. 

Premonition of death in darkness sleeping; 

Then the trilled bugle's dance below the hill; 
Beyond the hill, the same dumb figures creeping 

Over the land of no-man, watching still. 
As that woman somewhere down the dusk weeping. 

55 



CHORDS FROM ALBIKEO 

Surging, feeling out of the numb of sleep, 
Miracle melody yearning along the hill 

Breaks as a wave — drum taps — ^last, the deep 
Longing over the night, the mind hears still 

The song foregone, the swing of the planets' reap. 

Will dreams fester when our song is done? 

We'll mind not that ! A cloud is bringing rains 
Across the moon — all past and present gone ; 

Yet the rumbly squeak of unseen wagon trains 
Keeps with the frogs their stupid monotone. 



56 



THEIR YESTERDAY 

(Apremont, Sept. 11, 1918) 

When the last effort has sufficed 
All but man's image to erase. 
And worshippers of Eve or Christ 
Leave but their crosses to efface. 

O, it will not be hard to pass 
Where centuries are not so long, 
Unmirrored in the broken glass, 
Still quick where memory is strong. 

Only the kinder few will note 
A cross upon the records where. 
Invisible, His swift hand wrote 
My name in the perennial quair. 

A few these remnants shall enfold. 
Official in their decorous way. 
Forgetting ere the earth be old 
They laid me with their yesterday. 

Their yesterday and my tomorrow 
To wing and with the meteor climb 
Whence stronger faith or pity borrow 
The mastery of our sublime ; 

Where unexpended sense shall quaff 
The choiring beauty of no form, 

57 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

Or from its peace ride as the chaff 
Giddy on pinnacles of storm, 

While dynasties of old disdain 

Kneel unto democratic hate. 

And summer moons through veils of pain 

Rise poppy-red and passionate, 

They'll hear trees tip-toe on the hill, 
The winnowing of hands o'erhead, 
And know the elemental will 
Reaps on the highways of the dead. 

And something in their sleep shall stir ; 
Insensate things shall move and seem 
Burnished beneath His scimitar; 
And common things become as dream. 

You'll know when first the amber star 
Creeps down the intimate stair of night ; 
Oh, Heart, still moves your avatar 
From life to death, from death to light. 

You'll hear old laughter down the gloom 
Of twilight hills when day is done, 
Still foot-falls through the poppy bloom; 
When you shall know that I have gone. 

Gone, and the dust of flesh is spent, 
And error dead, and God but true ; 
Oh, Heart, the dawn of that ascent 
To all eternity with you! 

58 



FINALE 

(Chaillon: Nov. 10th, 1918) 

There is an end, I knew it must be so, 

An end with the dissolving of mad tears, 

When all the blinded eyes must see anew 

The olden ways adorned in ecstasy. 

Oh, Figure of our long imprisoned hours, 

Shall you be waiting, kindly as of yore, 

Kindly and wise to long enduring hurt 

That may not speak nor yet be understood. 

When we return, oh, to yon paradise? 

And dim winds murmur down the lonesome valley. 

Hazy with summer noons, and western light; 

And music from the throat of arbored birds; 

And lazy hum of drowsy crawling things 

Warm with uncountered rest; oh, above all. 

The sullen beat of seas beyond the hill, 

Deep with gigantic distance, sad with faith 

Eternal and eternal as their tides; 

These and the everlasting shall we find, 

Free limbed and these lips free of false denials, 

To flout the passionate gales, to whisper tales 

At twilight, sing and chatter with the world. 

"Beauty of woman, comrade, earth and sea," 

God, that the mind should ever have conceived 

Such benisons to make and break in dreams, 

Dreams ill-begotten in these far stark fields. 

59 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

Beauty of God, yea, it must come again. 
Since words we sought to say for comrades' sake 
Were bartered by the faithless and we lost 
The little vestige of the truth we were. 
And those who wore authority to scourge, 
And took their pride to doubt our holy hours. 
Shall come to knock upon the outer gate 
To beg admittance — glad, immaculate Heart, 
It shall be yours to resurrect these dead, 
With yours the everlasting constancy ; 
Ever the eyes in which you set the fire 
Immortal from the travesty of war. 
And we'll go do\'\Ti the sweet familiar lanes 
Of eager faces as we went before, 
Taking the reed these lesser sought to break. 
Go down old lanes, or by new hearth fires pipe 
To weary children ditties of new lore. 



60 



1919 



DOLORES 
I 

I found you in the eyes along old streets 

Facets of the first star one can't forget, 

Those living dead whom one forever meets, 

Shadows of a perfection we have met. 

And it is not luxuriance I ask; 

I slept in mire and mud, on dirty floors, 

Yet to return imto this beggar's task. 

Continual knocking at the myriad doors ; 

You had not spoken of it as I went 

Half certain in the glamour, nor cared much 

How in the last mad fury life was spent, 

Only, you came and I stirred at your touch, 

And, at your word, went down the road alone; 

But that long since, and now you too have gone. 



63 



II 

Strange spirit-eyed, will you not keep the sense 
Of what we can be from the thing we are, 
Finding in loss the constant recompense. 
Throughout the dark a still prevailing star? 
You, for the faith in whom, these went and died 
In fields forgotten, will you hold at naught 
The faithful remnant to be crucified. 
Choke the last breath for which as dogs these fought? 
As from the fever of some hideous sleep. 
Like broken shadows of victorious night. 
These bloody heads and hearts in memory creep 
Back to the resurrection of your light ; 
Oh, Heart, all wise ; yours too the fragile pain. 
To build the fires for mastery again ! 



64 



PHILANDERER 

You tell me I waste my powers, 
Then, what will you have done, 

When the dim tolling hours 
Beat quickstep to our sun? 

If the sand of the running hours 

Is filling the lower glass, 
Will you count the petalled flowers 

To tell the hours that pass? 

I am the will and the way. 

Chalice of unspent wine ; 
What if another must pay 

To drink of what is mine? 

Years to come shall they think 
To knock at another's door. 

With him unwitting drink 
Of me, as you drank before. 

I am the shade and the light 
Laughter and tear in their song, 

Reaping the glory of right 

Sowed in the knowledge of wrong. 

65 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

Cry of the world in sadness 

Only an echo of me ; 
Child's soft laughter in gladness 

My immortality. 

Heart of a woman is song, 
Love in the last is right ; 

Yearning that knows no wrong 
Shall never have seen the light. 

Mine is but to have striven 
For gift of the soul in seeing 

That beauty of heart is given 
Alone by virtue of being. 



66 



FORGOTTEN LOVER 

Oh, what is that stark tree out yonder doing, 
Doomed to outlive our days a century? 
So, having loved long since, eternally 
Irresistible in its futile wooing? 

They say it is the wind or anything 

They do not know about that stirs the trees, 

A gale or hurricane or just a breeze, 

A glimmering breath of what we each call Spring. 

Ajid yet each year I hear it said by some. 
There climb to deck new leaves upon the tree — 
And in their task move branches terribly — 
The ghosts of children past and years to come. 

Only it must be mockery of our Spring 
Lovers and loved departed thus to see. 
Keeping their foolish songs in treasury. 
Immortal and impossible to sing. 

l)umb limbs transfigured in the endless quest ; 
You image of youth dead, and so of me. 
Laugh! That the myriad love shall endlessly 
Seek to embrace and never, never rest. 



67 



FAITH 

If all the beauty in the world 

Merged with the darkness there and fell 

Clattering down the stair of night, 

I'd laugh into the face of Hell, 

And mock that Beauty seemed in flight. 

For I should know, as you would know 
The gladness in the face of men 
But facet and the afterglow 
Of olden Beauty come again; 

And all our laughter and our tears. 
The blush upon the cheek that grows. 
Music of immemorial years. 
Bloom of the immemorial rose; 

And darkness but the clouds that pass ; 
The stair of night but moonbeam falling; 
Beauty the lover and his lass 
Each to the other ever calling. 



68 



FANTASY 

Although a guest, 
I left, alone, and quietly closed the door 

Upon the rest. 
I did not care, nor thought to see them more 

Upon this quest. 

Thinking to greet, 
Beyond the decent hills and glad horizon, 

Down endless street. 
The form of dreams our waking ne'er set eyes on, 

Only to meet 

Her I once met. 
The lone madonna with the eyes of pain 

Sweet with regret; 
Men seek forever, never find again, 

Nor can forget. 



69 



UPON THE PIPER 

Oh, elders, wherefore have ye done? 

Wipe not your bigot eyes ; 
That this wan man of red and brown 
Turned his sweet face on Hamlin town 
To pipe the blessed children down 

The vale of Paradise. 

Still he sings of the bitter sands 

Washed by a restless sea, 
Of a man of men long years ago 
And a valiant band who loved him so 
They followed as he was wont to go 

By the shores of Galilee. 

His flute was as the northern winds 

That flout the Norsemen's ire ; 
He touched the stops in nimble art. 
Playing each part and counterpart. 
Till chords sang as a broken heart 
With pain of sweet desire. 

Little faith, oh, little faith 

Beyond the hills of doom ! 
Ye fat and lean who dance around 
Till ye lie prostrate on the ground, 
Will ye not hear the fluted sound. 

Aye, quickening of your tomb? 

70 



UPON THE PIPER 

Broken hearts and broken hearts, 

Know ye not your desire? 
A paltry sacrifice, to see 
That Hamlin stands by Galilee, 
Whose children's immortality 
Breathes a diviner fire. 



71 



GENERATIONS 

When you are old and I am old 

And embers of the heart grow cold, 

Or lips unto my lips that press 

Shall stir no sense but holiness 

Of other dreams in other hours 

Where seeds we sowed sprang brighter flowers; 

And from the ashes of our fire 

Uprose new figures in desire ; 

After the best and worst we live, 

We'll hold the single gift ; to give — 

Keep requiem v/ith our yesterday, 

And laieel upon our stones to pray : 

"Child of the sun, and wind, and rain, 
Child of the Springtide come again. 
Our gift be given that you shall know. 
Before the bud to blossom grow. 
The sense of joys that might have been 
Renders the joy, that was, more keen; 
That men forever by their creed 
Must hound the phantom of their need, 
Out of the din and dirt of toil, 
The traffic and the trade of moil. 
Return to dream at the day's end. 
Yet laiow not in what way to spend 
The glitter that they labored for. 
So restless fare to seek the more ; 
Till, in our broken age we find 

72 



GENERATIONS 

The veriest of humankind 
Ephemerids of a Master mind ; 
And all our grave philosophy 
Man's measure of God's destiny; 
And Truth but the unspoken word 
Determined ere the first seed stirred; 
He, above all, will understand 
The two He fondles in His hand. 
And we, these two, before His face 
Dare venture to our own disgrace 
That lips express a better way 
Of things, too beautiful to say. 
Child of the sun, or wind, or rain. 
Child of that beauty born of pain, 
Yours be our immortality. 
Our gift your vision that you see 
To laugh on age, nor be afraid 
At passion as a tune outplayed." 

What though your forehead graven grow, 

I shall still watch the afterglow 

Of the eternal virgin star, 

Kjiowing the purest light we are 

In strength of laughter at our grief. 

In mockery of diverse belief, 

But shadow of some gleam afar. 



73 



LITTLE FEET 

Little feet, little feet 
Roaming on the star-lit street, 

Benison of God, your faith 
In your moon-begotten wraith, 

Centuries and centuries 
Roll beneath your destinies, 

Destinies you never Iniow 
Till the lilies crimson blow. 

Do you ever dream before 
You tap and enter at the door, 

Of the sadly grosser things 
That shatter men's imaginings? 

Still the little voices rise ; 
Out of the city chaos, cries. 
Hunger, and thirst in silence dies, 
Spawn of the gloried infamies. 
And so you say it must go on 

Ah, well, my son, 
Ask of some wiser master of the law 

What Sparta saw 
Her citadels of fibre hung upon. 

And then return ; 
Tell me the one privilege we hold 

By magic paramount. 
Is live and love and laugh and drink and sing. 

And then waste-weary just forget the thing, 
But leave to future debtors full account 

74 



LITTLE FEET 

Of which they know not, nor can pay 
But as inheritors of yesterday, 

Today's eternal failures manifold. 

And then return. 
Tell me the wage and way of humankind 

Is always such ; 
And no one will care much 

For miracles and others, 
But will live swiftly and then leave behind 
Their debt to earth's new brothers. 

You think we live and die 
In our own pleasant infamy? 

There are no others 
Foreseeing the joy of kind? 

Poor fool, I say you lie ; 
You'll see — ^but, never mind. 

Little feet, little feet, 
Running down the star-lit street; 

Perfection but to make your dream 
The verity that it should seem ; 

Drowsy heads around the fire. 
Drowsy lips that sing desire ; 

Wait till we prepare to bless 
Your miracle of holiness. 

Prescience of you far away. 
With you will be yesterday ; 

Little feet, little feet, 
'Twill be different when we meet. 



75 



BREATH 

As I lie in the grass 
Beneath the summer sky, 
Watching the clouds that pass, 
I wonder what hope, if I 

Suddenly vanish away? 
If what men took me for, 
Except as the light of day. 
Came among friends no more? 

Still I would come and go. 
The breath of what was I, 
Play with the to and fro. 
And hover quite tranquilly 

Over the grass and flowers 
Where I had lain before. 
Days and years and hours 
Nothing but evermore. 



76 



BY THE SEA 



BEATA DIE 

Within the first beginning, 

Transfiguring belief, 
Impossible of sinning, 

Incredible of grief. 
The perfect God who bore you 

In pain that makes aright, 
In perfect vision saw you. 

To fashion you of light; 
Chose from the purest leaven 

The seed whence you are made, 
To blossom in man's heaven, 

Exquisitely portrayed. 

Light in the deep affliction, 

Finding all gladness good, 
Worst in the Crucifixion 

The best they understood ; 
One above many mortals, 

Now come you in His name 
White flame against our portals 

As once of old He came ; 
Proud in the youth of yearning, 

Queen of your infinite task, 
Courage of fearful learning. 

Mother of all we ask. 

Not for your utter measure, 
Nor that which you are not, 

79 



CHOEDS FROM ALBIREO 

Not for the pain of pleasure, 

Which may not be forgot ; 
Nor hps that might have spoken 

Of beauty after pain ; 
Not for the shard that broken 

Shall never mend again ; 
But dreams of truth that flourish 

Reborn, we kneel today; 
The flowers men shall nourish 

In Gethsemane for aye. 

Over the sunlit pages 

Another hour has tolled; 
We gather the hopes of ages 

Into the evening fold 
For brighter dawns tomorrow, 

Beautiful as you go 
In raiment that we borrow 

To hide the tears that flow ; 
Taking strength of your trial. 

Safe through the flood and fire. 
Courage from your denial, 

Cool in the deep desire. 

Adown the way unending. 
Through gardens understood. 

As twilight lilies bending 
Deepen in motherhood; 

And who shall watch, nor dreaming. 
The tremor of your lips. 

Sacred beyond all seeming, 

80 



BEATA DIE 

Nor feel the heart's eclipse, 
In little hands that reaching 

Span the mysterious years, 
Or little lips beseeching 

Between their doubts and fears. 

You in the wine life christens, 

Wine that was blood before, 
Is it the deep heart listens 

Where the great gods implore? 
'Ware lest the little scorners 

Lead you within their past ; 
Watch lest pity give mourners 

A soul for their pennies cast; 
Child of our infinite being. 

Shall it be yea or nay ; 
Beauty beyond all seeing. 

Love beyond all men say ! 

You shall uplift their banner ; 

Falter it not, nor sway. 
Knowing in your own manner 

The earth's more common way. 
After you legions surging. 

Faces uplift to the sky. 
Out of the years emerging 

Glad in your name to die; 
Beware, not swift to render 

Yours, as a thing too dear ; 
Beauty ordains in splendour 

Love in its intimate fear. 

81 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

What time the pagans started. 

We bore indeed your lance, 
And went as broken-hearted 

To play at death with France ; 
Returned again in wonder 

To olden shores at last. 
Here in the twilight ponder 

Upon the darkling past ; 
Ponder and ask if ever 

Dawn from our darkness rise ; 
Is it the years can sever 

Hell from our Paradise? 

Lo, through the devious ranging 

Still flares the former light, 
The way and will unchanging. 

Still weary after flight. 
But, oh, through fearful winding 

Through death for what it bought. 
The glory of the finding 

The heart forever sought! 
The face we first set eyes on. 

For which, in peace, it seems 
We sit behind horizon 

To play at life with dreams ! 

So is it willed, Madonna, 

You for the soul you are ; 
Man with his way in honor ; 

The child with his vagrant star. 
Whatever, as men, we name you, 

82 



BEATA DIE 

Year unto dying year, 
However dust may claim you, 

Vision shall persevere. 
However the present perish. 

As ever realities do. 
Children to be shall cherish 

Truth as a part of you. 

You in the thing you make it. 

Eternal or not to be ; 
Beauty for what you take it 

As life in its entity ; 
Heart of the purer passion; 

Eyes of the kindlier rest ; 
Love in its dearer fashion ; 

Peace in the myriad quest, 
Worship we unto the last. 

Poor as our dumb lips pray ; 
Future and present and past, 

Distilled in the one today. 

September 19th. 



83 



MINOR DOMINANTS 

Through the myriad hopes and failures, vagrant of 

a common earth, 
Do you ask the song that led me to the heart of 

Arcady, 
To the glory out of sadness, sorrow that betrays our 

mirth. 
Lady of the wind and stars and all unspoken things 

to me? 

Would these laiow the pain that swept me as IVe 

watched the faintest gesture 
Hiding all your heart sang with the sea along its 

coral bars? 
Watched the twilight raiment fall across the wonder 

of your vesture, 
Woven of star-revery that dreams bring nearer 

than the stars? 

Through the lone recessionals of time the song of 

songs is one, 
One immortal thing the winds have whispered in 

the years between. 
Saying lips of courage cease not once the symphony 

begun ; 
Men are naught in the eternal; faith is what we 

have not seen ! 

Though I gather from the sheaves the songs men 
ever sang before, 

84. 



MINOR DOMINANTS 

Rises still against their voices but the one and living 

theme, 
That I found the old sea singing, feeling round its 

myriad shore. 
Beating as a lost heart keeping harmony with its 

one dream. 

I have hidden in the darkness, but through darkness 

silence strays. 
All the silence that but echoes dreams that are not, 

yet may be, 
Sets the weary heart to singing the old song that 

ever says 
All the dearer things unspoken that you ever meant 

to me. 

What of all the nearer sweetness if it linger on in 
pain ; 

What of all the songs of laughter if thereafter cry- 
ing brings 

Drifting down the purple pinewoods as a melody 
again. 

Haunts a hallowed place deserted where the lone 
earth-mother sings. 

Is it but the fever vision of a heart weak after fight. 
Pale as dead desire that wakens to its immortality ; 
Worship of a dog whose eyes by some old faith are 

kept alight. 
Knowing not the sail shall never lift against the sky 

at sea? 

85 



CHORDS FROM ALBIREO 

As a treasury of Eden, will you in the dusk re- 
member 

The one flower of his garden, radiant in its place 
alone ; 

Shall it gleam upon another's hearth as fire gone to 
ember. 

When I pass the lighted inns along the starlit high- 
ways gone? 



86 



STAR 

Out of the night, 

Out of the pall of mist 

Gradual and half timidly you came. 

As variant amethyst 

Slowly refulgent in its myriad light 

Orbs into being; the face that has no name. 

The strange lips smiling scarlet as a wound. 

Tears brimming the grey eyes. 

And essence of wind's tremor in your hair ; 

From somewhere music flows, yet without sound. 

As the continual urge that underlies 

Some lost fulfilment that we did not dare. 

And, lo, you fade 

While moments of the self rise to deceive 

And stand between 

The eyes and what they saw. 

As flesh will intervene 

Betwixt our purpose and what we achieve, 

Yet would adore. 

But, lo, again you rise 

Like the dim aria of all constant prayer, 

And in your eyes 

Shadow of this infinite Truth you are. 

Translucent star 

Of Somebody that sings and breathes elsewhere. 



87 



VISION 

Once I went out alone to play a game, 
And met two others playing on the sward ; 
And something sang within me with no name, 
Like as a purpose planets venture toward. 
We spoke not, yet I knew upon some hearth 
A fire was lit more bright than myriad's love, 
And felt at point with victory come on earth 
After the weary dark we speak not of, 
Through sleeplessness of woundings, God knows 

not 
What misery — then suddenly success, 
A vast and sweet clean earth, all else forgot. 
But this one star united out of stress : 
The flowers grew bright, and meaning flushed the 

stone ; 
Somebody touched me where I went alone. 



88 



POSSESSION 

I've heard it said there is beyond the scope 
Of solar limits and the lunar span 
Some region fashioned in the light of hope, 
A garden that the Master laid for man. 
And there we find this phantom thing we seek, 
Fearing, against ourselves, its holiness; 
We that were dumb as mortals learn to speak, 
And come at last this Beauty to possess ; 
And shall forget the little hours on earth, 
Bewildered with extraordinary pain, 
Knowing this revelation the last birth, 
With death gone by nor to return again; 
Finding the all we lost to make amend 
For perseverance to each futile end ! 



89; 



TRINITY 

I saw three ships loom dark against the West, 
In silent splendor 'cross the opal bar 
Like dreams, as growing dark made manifest 
Above each masthead one lone singing star. 

And from the first a slim, pale woman stepped 
In colored raiment; looked back tenderly 
Upon the others while the one hand kept 
A curious jewel bright like memory. 

And from the next a youth of tawny frame 
Leapt as a fawn, his stature 'gainst the sea 
In sinewed splendor glimmered like a flame; 
There the two waited on their treasury. 

Until arose from the third ship a sound 
Of younger laughter and of little feet 
Running adown the shore and all around 
Like ripples on the twilight sands that beat. 

But there the coast-guard stood where they would 

go. 
And laughed into their faces, and his hand 
Lifted against the last ship. He growled, "No! 
This is no port for our souls' contraband." 

90 



TRINITY 

Thereat the woman lifted up her eyes 
And seemed to speak though her lips never stirred ; 
And he was troubled with blind mysteries, 
And in his deafness trembled that he heard. 

While the youth stood agleam, alert for fight, 
Then straightened by her in disdain of harm ; 
And through the dusk there stole upon them light, 
And strength stood forth like shadow on his arm. 



And I ran down to see, and there like dead 
The shoreman lay, face down and very still ; 
The stars were gone that lighted each masthead — 
But there was laughter running on the Hill. 



91 



NE- 

Will you forget the first and deep inthrong 
Of moon that crowned the darkness of the height, 
When all you said fell as an olden song, 
In contradiction making the darkness bright? 
Will you forget, now all is said and done, 
Eternities that held you when you came ; 
Forget the light because the star is gone; 
Let perfect cause make consequence the blame? 
Your petals sudden fall and leaves turn sere 
Where in a day the flower raised its head. 
Knowing the same flower shall year after year 
Sing the same song long after we are dead? 
And, though you close the Garden where you met 
The dream our souls forego, would you forget? 



92 



PLUS- 

So love went down a black road in the wood, 
Filled with the far dim longing of the sea. 
For that she sought her self, half understood, 
Where the wind moved like rain mysteriously. 
The stars were flung as dust in the tree-tops ; 
There Merlin touched his fingers to the lyre. 
And old time passed as life when the heart stops. 
His voice shed beauty as a lost desire 
Over the fallen head, the sweet face white 
Even in darkness ; never the red lips stirred. 
But that fear rose like shadow of her light ; 
Love started up unknowing what she heard. 
Went as a dream with raised and ghostly hand 
Groping to man's earth out of Fairyland. 



93 



ULTRA 

And Love spoke woman-wise unto the Man, 
Warping the heart threads in the woof of mind; 
"Being born thus, I Uve for what I can, 
Predestined servant to your humankind. 
Having endured in dream my thrice childhood; 
What though they perish in the first assault, 
I severed gladness from me for their good, 
I hid my dream lest they interpret fault !" 
Then Merlin — "If you die, why shall they live? 
You play with flowers nor see what lies behind. 
Crucify self, and what remains to give? 
How may these see by you when you go blind?" 
And Merlin turned to Fairyland again. 
And Love cried after beauty in her pain. 



94 



DESTINY 

She had a laughter one would not forget, 
Like wind in trees or far along a sea, 

Such as strong men go seeking after, glad 
With hope and prayer of some old memory 

Mulled in the sweet of dreaming what men had 
And heard in Dante's day, and die for yet. 

Playing one day, another player she met. 

Who took and struck new chords upon the lute 

Of strange desire and magic round the child 
For one brief song. The silence was more mute 

Than all past glory might have reconciled. 
Except the laughter men would not forget. 

There was another, God's will, like as not, 
Proximity enshrined, as birth cro\\Tis kings, 

For whom she gave her laughter and her own. 
For whom she waited in all little things, 

All else foregone. And when the two were grown 
They were as one, and, like as one, forgot. 



95 



TOKEN 

The shears of eve are swift ; the gold curl tumbles, 
Gift of the West to East, a delicate fallen lock 
To bring me rest from riot, and quiet the heart's 

knock 
And labor ever searching the dust that round it 

crumbles. 

For what alone we take it, a rare gift given, 

Say not that he once lived; better, his pen once 

wrote 
Not of the object given, but glad our gifts connote 
Something of us that shall not in life or death be 

riven. 

Severed from the mortal, still immortal growing, 
The mortal fact may follow its cycle unto dust ; 
Still truth of it immortal remains unseen in trust. 
In thanks for what is given beyond the word's be- 
stowing. 

What if this must be the last leave-taking. 

Or if the desert silence or sea leagues lie between. 

Let us say hands we touched, loved faces we have 

seen 
Are trinkets of faith's memory beyond all breaking. 



96 



SONG OF SONGS 

A stroller passed one day who sang a song, 
One melody of all life's notes that mattered, 

Notes from the leaves we lingered on too long, 
That in the hours between he had found scattered ; 

Notes of still streams that under striving run, 
Of findings that throughout all quest we keep ; 

The sense of two hands given for the one ; 
A kiss upon some forehead that brought sleep. 

One song he sang, a stranger without name. 
Of radiance whence from time to time we borrow ; 

The stars drew down to listen where he came ; 
Time was a myth long since endowed by sorrow. 



97 



LILIES RED 

(Upon a Northern shore) 

Where fields are bitter silence save 
The trickle of the stormy mist, 

Or white-lipped rancor of the wave 
Against its shore ; where winds persist 
In whimper round their grave ; 

Our lilies fling a patch of red 

At random mid the brake and weed. 

They seem to raise each one its head 
In scorn like heroes yet that bleed, 
Or souls among the dead. 

God's glorious remnant outward bound 

In search of their eternity, 
I see them as re-opened wound 

Sharp on the darkness of the sky, 

Or vivid like a sound. 

My face is cold and blind with rain, 
The wind will find no respite, yet 

These flame as old songs come again, 
Like scarlet dreams we would forget. 
Blood startled in the vein. 

98 



LILIES SED 

I think there is a hope that lies 

Beneath this barren shore outleant, 

Some respite for the heart that cries 
Through lonely hours of searching spent 
With its eternities. 

This flame against the sky I see 
The blossom of a perfect seed, 

These flowers limned against the sea 
Whereby our Northern lilies bleed, 
Sown in Gethsemane. 



99 



TO W. R. W. 

The last toast is taken, 
Closed Loch Erin's door, 
Summer petals shaken 
Along September's shore. 

Gathered threads are broken, 
The old loom is still. 
Winter gives no token 
Of us on the Hill, 

Hill we once ascended 
In the key of blue. 
Summer trails are ended. 
Not so mine with you. 

Though one Hill be breathless, 
Stark on Winter's sky. 
We with Spring are deathless, 
Climbing, you and I. 



100 



"="*=^-iiiii. 



